It’s an odd time to tell someone else to meet. Why not 5:30 or 5:35?
It is a lot more precise and shows that I have planned it out. I mean what I say.
It’s odd, I know.
But it’s precise, exact and intended.
Let’s meet at 5:37. See you in 9 minutes. Could you meet in 4 minutes?
I’ve deleted all my infinite scrolling apps (FB, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter). I’ve stopped reading online news and only read a printed Sunday paper. I’ve paid for products to remove ads (Cruncy Roll, YouTube, Pandora).
Today, I listened to the founder of Center For Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, talk being intentional about how we should guard our attention and time from social media apps. He has went to school with the founders of Instagram and he talked about how Instagram’s founder were masters of stealing attention by designing the user interface in ways to hack our brains to come back over and over again to the Instagram app.
After thinking about it a little bit, I thought about buying a flip phone to be used on weekends in addition to my Android Nexus 6P. However, instead of buying another gadget, which will break my vow to not buy anything for one year unless it’s perishable or a book, I’ve decided to do the following life hack on my Android phone.
On Android, you can create multiple users who get a completely clean Android home screen with the clean version Android. From that clean slate, I can install apps that allow me to single task. This similar to how you can create new users on your laptop.
In this Context I have only
Nothing from Gmail, work email, Slack or SMS is interrupting my flow.
My activities
In this Context I have only
My activities
Nothing from Gmail, YouTube, any personal apps interrupting my flow.
In this Context I have only
My activities
All notifications turned off. No email, nothing.
This is the messiest one with everything else. Personal Gmail, Wechat, banking apps, commuting apps and personal Slack channels. This is only the first week that I’m trying this so I could possibly create more contexts as they make themselves known to me.
These contexts make my intentions known and clear to my brain. Each context is meant to signal that what my primary purpose is. The completely controlled context is forcing me to single task, finish that portion and then move to the next context intentionally.
The contexts are discrete from each other. An example is that there is no multi-tasking when I’m listening to a podcast, I cannot email at the same time. As I physically switch from one context to the others, my brain also switches contexts and get ready for the next focus area. Making the context switching harder and longer will hopefully signal and train my brain to focus on a single task at hand.
I have recently started a media detox program of not reading online news, online blogs, social networks (Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, Instagram). Instead I am focusing on listening to interview based podcasts and reading physical books.
During this journey of reassessing how I spend my attention and time, I also started powering off my cell phone after I get home until I wake up the next morning.
This is the beginning of a long journey towards changing my life habits. During this discovery phase, I have stumbled upon (virtually) several people that have influenced me deeply.
One such person is Tim Ferris. Through his books (Tribe of Mentors, Tools of Titan) and podcasts (Tim Ferris Show, Tribe of Mentors), he has exposed me to life stories of people (authors, athletes, thought leaders). Most important of all, Tim Ferris has exposed me to books that have influenced the people he interviews in his book and podcasts. For example, Maria Popova is a writer who reads, thinks and writes on brainpicker.org. She reads a lot of books and spend hundreds of hours a month researching and writing. That is her full time ‘job’ if you can call it that.
Another interview based podcast is Design Matters with Debbie Millman. She started out many years ago interviewing designers & artists. But has since expanded her interviews to cover bloggers, authors, and other passionate ‘humans’ (I like the word). Today I just discovered books from Anand Giridharadas, author of ‘True American’, ‘India Calling’. The author claims that he accidentally come across Trumpism in 2011 and that our nation is now torned between those who used to rule America for the last 400 years vs the new minority majority. The next 40 years will be full of tension as the nation readjust to the power shift. For people who want change to happen sooner, be patient. In the arc of history, we are already changing very rapidly.
Reading: I read books. I get more recommendations for more books. I read more books.
Thinking: I listen to Piano Dreamer radio on Pandora, and I think.
Writing: I write blog posts inspired directly or indirectly by the books I read.
To those who have questioned my habit. Yes I do watch videos. I watch BWF badminton videos. I watch the shows that my family want to watch with me. That’s it.
Will you join this detox program and get back your attention span?
Recently I have made choices on how I spend my time and this has helped me decide what I say YES to and more importantly what I say NO to
If I had to choose between taking muni or Lyft to work, I choose Lyft. Muni takes 45 minutes for a 4 mile trip to downtown San Francisco. Lyft costs more, but gets me there in 20 minutes. I pull up my laptop and write a blog post while I’m in Lyft.
I install a free AdBlocker, but I donate $15 for it in order to get rid of ads on webpages. I pay for ad free Hulu, ad free YouTube, ad free Crunchyroll.
I stop reading news and just read books and the Sunday newspaper delivered to my home.
I listen to Piano Dreamers radio when I write, read and not music with lyrics because I can only single task, no one can multitask!
My family comes before almost everything except my own health. Spending time with my daughter, my wife & my parents always bubbles to the top.
I only have 2 really close friendships, that is all I have time for. And even that I don’t spend enough time nurturing.
I spend time mentoring several women at work and I try to spending meaningful time with them to help them with advice they are seeking.
My time and interaction has a long term focus. Long term is 10 years, 15 years. So I optimize for long term vs short wins.
I spend time to have deeper impact on a single person, but I optimize for larger impact. For example, I may spend hours mentoring a person but I might distill that work into a blog like impactfulengineer.org to help hundreds later.
I say YES to anything that I will regret when I am dying on my deathbed.
Tony Tam 